Toronto Walk: Galleria Mall

In my job I’ve heard of the terms “Greenfield Development” and “Brownfield Development” for underdeveloped rural land use and contaminated urban land use planning, but this week I read up on “Greyfield Development” in a 2007 paper from the University of Toronto. The paper defines greyfields as “large, developed sites that are due for redevelopment”. As a kid from Scarborough, I know what greyfield areas look like, and was shocked that over 5 years ago Galleria was a poster child for future solving the problem with grey.

The report describes the history of the site (Highlights mine), “The Galleria Shopping Centre was developed in the early 1970s as a single storey, enclosed mall. The mall is approximately 19,325 sq m (204,000 sq ft), surrounded by approximately 550 surface parking spaces. A McDonalds and a gas station are located at the eastern end of the site at the corner of Dupont Street and Dufferin Street. Zellers, Price Chopper, PharmaPlus and LCBO anchor the centre, supported by a variety of smaller, local tenants. On the edge of an existing residential neighbourhood, with obsolete industrial uses to the north, the site has been seen as possessing substantial redevelopment potential since the early 1980s, including being recognized in both the old Toronto Official Plan and new Toronto Official Plan as a site for a “large scale redevelopment”. Applications to redevelop the mall were submitted by the owner, Marca Development Corporation, in 2002.”

Today, this isn’t in existence, but we’re going to pretend it is. While TorontoWalking today, we’ll be imaging what the redevelopment of Galleria, and the proposed new urban amenities for the Wallace-Emerson by spacing, would be like; what impact, improvements, and challenges face a grey region and how do we prepare for them?

For Galleria, it appears that better Master planning of the site, a clear vision (with community buy in and engagement), and strong public consultation are critical to transform this greyfield into the true, profitable, neighbourhood hub it was dreamed to be.